He gets the ball, he scores a goal
Posted by: not-Greg in Andy Cole, Valencia, goal replay, league table, tags: Andy Cole, goal replay, league table, ValenciaA rapid-fire round of games in the League, the Cup, and the European Cup against Espanyol, Benfica, and Espanyol again, saw me win, win, and win… I’ve been on a pretty good run since I took a break from the game for a couple of days. In the future I’ll be alert to the signs of PES fatigue and will take action appropriately.
I’ve forgotten to mention all this season that Andy Cole is banging in the goals regularly for me in all competitions. In the League he’s the joint-top goalscorer right now with 15 goals.
I rarely have the top goalscorer. Generally I’ll win one Golden Boot in every 10 seasons or so of Master League. That’s not very good, but as I keep saying nor am I very good (at PES), and it’s true, so it makes sense that I should only win the Golden Boot once in a virtual blue moon. One of the many things I had against next-gen PES2008 is that I could win the Golden Boot every season without any effort whatsoever.
This batch of games on the PS3 and the widescreen TV had to come to an end. I wanted to carry on playing at work, and in transit to and from work, so back onto the PSP I had to go. I was dreading the transition after getting used again to the luxury of the big, proper controller and the big, proper screen, but it was fine. I think the transition the other way—from PSP to PS3—is the one that always catches me out. Hopefully I’ll be ready for it when it comes around again.
I played a peculiar string of games where I took 1-0 leads and then had to hang on for grim life until the end. And I did so on each occasion. There were about four games in a row like that. 1-0 most of the way through and at the final whistle. Strange.
The run of 1-0s was broken when I came up against Barcelona in the league. I beat them 2-1. I haven’t lost in the league for about eight games now. I’ve only drawn one or two. This is very healthy form to be in. As I expected, Valencia at the top have started to drop points and I am catching up with them. I am now just 5 points behind. Looking at the table with a pragmatic eye, I cannot guarantee that I’ll overhaul Valencia as I did—just—last season. I should concentrate on fending off the teams below me in order to ensure at least a second-place finish. I’ll try to do both. I’ll try to maintain my challenge whilst simultaneously holding onto that 2nd spot if the worst happens. I don’t fancy a long qualifying campaign for Europe at the start of next season.
Every run of great form has to come to an end. Mine did so in a worrying and potentially Treble-killing fashion. My next European Cup opponents in the knockout stages were Valencia—yes, the top AI team in my Master League. I dread playing them twice per season as it is. As much as I dread playing Osasuna, I dread Valencia more. They really are rather good…
I was at home, so my gameplan was to not concede anything and see if I could at least snatch one goal to take with me to their place. After half an hour all seemed to be going to plan. I scored a nice little goal with Kim Cyun Hi. This season Kim’s been very much in the shadow of Andy Cole, and of my sky-high expectations of him. So far he’s not really doing it week in, week out. But he’s still young, I keep telling myself. He’s got another few seasons to prove himself yet.
Valencia went into their usual overdrive mode. I can usually cope with it pretty well. Not on this occasion. They blasted me all through the second half with some wonderfully aggressive possession football. I can’t really say that my players had had their abilities disabled (that’s my usual complaint). I didn’t really play well. I was impatient and bad-tempered with the game. Valencia scored two great away goals and won the match 1-2. With the second leg at their place, I’m up against it. I’ll need to score at least two away goals myself to have any chance. A tall order.
One last thing. I rarely feature CPU goals on the blog, but I’ll make an exception in this case. With the score tied at 1-1 midway through the second half of our European game, Valencia won a free kick near my box. What followed was the kind of goal that you rarely see the AI scoring in PES. Any human player would have been proud of this one:
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Inzaghi playing for recently relagated Zaragoza is a bit strange! Good job on the run of form, but I would be worried with the Valencia 2nd leg! As you have mentioned before, the game doesn’t realise the next match is the 2nd leg. So if you go ahead in the next game, they will quickly revert to god mode..
I am having so much trouble on PES6 at the moment, but enjoying it immensely. I am 14th in the International League with Spain. I lost about 6 of the opening 8 games, getting battered week in, week out. The problem is when I play 4-3-3 I can make more chances, but concede a ton. I have now reverted to my old 4-4-2, and I am unbeaten in 5 or so, but can’t score goals.
Good goal by computer, I never try those sort of free kicks, usually go for net-busters. A trip to the training ground, I think.
I am envious of your ability to switch between PS2 and PSP and achieve results, I lose most of my games on the PSP. It just never happens for me, psychological I think, I am beat before the game starts.
PSP is great, I have downloaded all the WNEB podcasts via iTunes, listen to them on the PSP whilst out with the dog. I do all my negotiations through the PSP, I can spend ages going through all the players. That’s the good thing, ability to transfer data.
Hopefully you get the result you require in the Cup match, and get the treble you desire. Winning the league again from coming from behind, will this satisfy a real treble for you season?
Look at Rangers this season, they BLEW the league, due to their atrocious away form, not by their fixture backlog which was highlighted by the poor Scottish Media.
I will take any league title, whether virtually or for real. As the saying goes “the league table never lies”
Good luck
Not Given
Don’t know if you seen my post to you mate, I got FIFA 08 from ASDA £17.96 online, next day delivery.
Andy Cole who I got at the same time as Henrik Larsson, this is where Konami have got the player development correct with re-GEN’s.
Andy Cole is way above Henrik in development, both are 20 in my game. Cole was a prolific scorer with Newcastle from a young age, and Henrik never really discovered his potential until he signed for Celtic at 25. I looked at his growth development chart and this is when his starts are going to catch up, and will prolong into his mid 30’s.
On player development which you spoke about the other day, all my players who I play regularly are above the projected growth. I wonder if this will continue, or they peak at a certain point. I will keep an eye on it.
Not Given - I hear you about the AI not knowing the second leg is the second leg… It’s a glaring fault in PES that they haven’t rectified for X number of years now. Bloody annoying, and it did affect me in the second leg, but all will be revealed tomorrow.
PES6 suffered for me because I got my PS3 partway through the ‘PES6 year’ and I was aching for next-gen football, but only had PES6, so whenever I played it on my PS3 I did so in a bad mood. Still a great game, though. The conventional wisdom says that it was/is the best-ever PS2-era PES game. For me that award would go to PES5. PES6 would be second. Maybe PES2008 (PSP/PS2 of course) would be 3rd or 4th.
heraldo - Good point about Andy Cole’s early development, that hadn’t occurred to me. I still have Henrik in my squad and I’ll be watching to see if he starts being great in his late 20s, and if Cole starts to dip.
The PSP is a weird one. You look at the press it gets and it’s just about the most negative, derogatory press that any console gets. Every PSP games review absolutely has to contain a whinge about the PSP not having any good games. That’s rubbish, of course, but it’s become one of those things that everybody says and which is believed to be true because everybody says it. As soon as I see a games journo spouting off about it, I instantly take nothing else he/she says seriously.
Anyway… (strange rant there!) yes, my point about PES2008 on the PSP is that I’m a PSP-lover and maybe because I’ve spent so long playing on it (various games) I’ve grown adapted to the buttons, and the analogue nub, etc.? I’m also pretty motivated to play PES on it because - yes, here we go again - PES was one of the reasons I got a PSP in the first place. Little did I know I’d have to wait 3 years for a decent version on the handheld. I just hope the same doesn’t go for the PS3.
Does the goal come off a defender heads? Looks like it moves away from the keeper after it goes ‘past (or hits)’ the defenders. Still a nice goal, personally my favourite type atm are the ones where you burst past the defenders beating the offside trap and ping them past the keeper as they come off the post and in. For some reason that sort of goal instantly makes me think of Torres irl. Strange, I guess you’ll be the answer of that!
re: that goal - Seabass is joking, right? He must be reading your blog and laughing his script-enforcing ass right off.
Paww - I don’t think there’s a deflection. The odd flight of the ball is possibly related to the goal’s scripted nature, speaking of which…
Adriano - Of course, yes, it’s a totally scripted, un-defendable goal! I had a big long moan about it all ready to publish, but decided to just leave it as-is and see what people made of it.
I was really angry about the goal when it went in. I suppose I could have had a defender standing in front of the scissors-kicker, but what was I supposed to do—psychically foresee that the CPU was about to attempt this?
Scripting’s apologists (they exist) would contend that in this instance the game is only reproducing an element of real-life football—moments of individual inspiration and brilliance that really can’t be defended against. In that sense this solitary example of scripting is justified. But when it comes in the context of an Artificial Intelligence in full-on God Mode that’s blatantly massaging the gameplay to its own end, it doesn’t sit well with me.